Converse

Creative consumers and the retail space

Overview

A visual and collaborative approach to getting under the skin of creatively minded EU consumers

Converse has long enjoyed high status among creatively-minded youth and has strong brand positioning. But how does this fit with the large retailers it’s distributed in, which have their own brand identities? We were tasked with finding out what the young creative Converse shopper seeks from Converse in Foot Locker in six EU markets and how best to meet their needs via product, retail and comms.

Using a series of creative methodologies in keeping with the brand and its audience – Pinterest, citizen journalism and consumer workshops – we delved into the visual identities, inspirations and sneaker collections of 16-24 year old Converse at Foot Locker shoppers. Five prominent style groups emerged, some driven by enduring and iconic cultural reference points (slow fashion), others by street culture, celebrities and temporary trends (fast fashion).

We debriefed via a series of workshop sessions (video content, image galleries, breakout work groups etc!) tailored to different audiences, providing a crystal clear understanding of the Converse consumer profile at Foot Locker. The work fed directly into product development, comms strategy, content and optimising the in-store experience.

Narrated Galleries

We love films, but narrated galleries – fusing showreels of still images and audio of participant commentary – creates outputs that allow for high levels of reflection and audience empathy. Ideal for user experience work, in other words

Crowd Communities

We’ve a wealth of experience at setting up and managing communities for clients, with learnings on how best to engage audiences and a full box of tricks for maximising what we get out of the work – including geo tagging, streaming in social media data and a mobile optimised platform

Pinterest

We’ve used Pinterest to really good effect on a number of projects recently, helping us to explore differences and commonalities among different typologies in areas such as fashion and style, home, holidays and entertainment. Engagement levels with participants always rank high, and clients love the vividness and clarity of the findings.

Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism works on the principle of making reporters of our participants, briefing them to capture what’s happening in the lives of their friends and family via video dispatches and blogging. It gets us places where we can’t otherwise get. It bypasses the bias of having a researcher in attendance. People are often more accurate reporters on those around them than on themselves, so that’s another bias circumnavigated.

Network Audits

If you want to really understand how people interact with those around them, it’s logical to research interconnected groups of friends, family and work colleagues. First developed as part of our award winning word of mouth research for Guardian News & Media, and since then refined and reconfigured across a range of global projects, our network audit approach helps us understand who’s influencing who as authentically as possible.